Testimony of Healing August 15, 2011 Issue

Spiritual growth and a healing of back pain

Mike Jackson

I am very grateful for Christian Science and the gentle healing presence it has provided throughout my life. I went to Christian Science Sunday School and was the beneficiary of numerous examples of practical healing as a child, primarily resulting from the consistent love and dedicated metaphysical work of my mother. I was completely healed of what appeared to be a compound fracture of the wrist around the age of 12, without any need for medical attention. 

Most significantly, I grew up in the atmosphere of a general expectation of good, a lack of fear, and a strong sense of freedom—all based on what I was taught about my relationship to God, good, and my divine inheritance as His beloved child. For this gift, I am grateful beyond words.

As I entered my teen years, however, I allowed myself to be distracted by what Mary Baker Eddy described in chapter 5 of Science and Health as “animal magnetism.” She wrote, “As named in Christian Science, animal magnetism or hypnotism is the specific term for error, or mortal mind. It is the false belief that mind is in matter, and is both evil and good; that evil is as real as good and more powerful” (p. 103). In the Bible, the Apostle Paul refers to this as “the carnal mind” (Rom. 8:7) and also speaks of it as sin in his epistle to the Romans: “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” (7:19). 